A number of systems and programs are offered on the market for the design, the engineering and the manufacturing of objects. CAD is an acronym for Computer-Aided Design, e.g. it relates to software solutions for designing an object. CAE is an acronym for Computer-Aided Engineering, e.g. it relates to software solutions for simulating the physical behavior of a future product. CAM is an acronym for Computer-Aided Manufacturing, e.g. it relates to software solutions for defining manufacturing processes and operations. In such systems, the graphical user interface (GUI) plays an important role as regards the efficiency of the technique. These techniques may be embedded within Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems. PLM refers to a business strategy that helps companies to share product data, apply common processes, and leverage corporate knowledge for the development of products from conception to the end of their life, across the concept of extended enterprise.
The PLM solutions provided by Dassault Systemes (under the trademarks CATIA, ENOVIA and DELMIA) provide an Engineering Hub, which organizes product engineering knowledge, a Manufacturing Hub, which manages manufacturing engineering knowledge, and an Enterprise Hub which enables enterprise integrations and connections into both the Engineering and Manufacturing Hubs. All together the system delivers an open object model linking products, processes, resources to enable dynamic, knowledge-based product creation and decision support that drives optimized product definition, manufacturing preparation, production and service.
Traditionally, the design of an object to be manufactured undergoes several phases which notably include the “ideation” phase and the “concept” phase. During the ideation phase, a specialist designer, who is a specialist of the technical field, designs a two-dimensional (2D) drawing of the object, typically on a paper with a pen. During the concept phase, a CAD designer, who is familiar with the use of CAD systems, designs a three-dimensional (3D) parametric model corresponding to the 2D drawing. The 3D model contains specifications including parametric functions which allow the ulterior phases necessary to the manufacturing of the object.
At the time being, CAD systems are very complex to use. Indeed, most design operations require many interventions by the user. For example, for adding a primitive shape to a model, the user typically has to select the function dedicated to design the primitive shape through an icon or a menu provided by the GUI of the CAD system. Then, the user often has to interact with the design areas several times. For example, when designing a circle shape, the user has to do a first click that defines the position of the center. Then, a mouse move defines a dynamic radius. A second click then validates the circle creation with the current radius and center.
All these steps are time-consuming for the user. Notably, the mouse cursor covers a great distance on the screen with such an approach. The user may also have difficulties to find the function dedicated to the design of the primitive shape intended by the user. For example, the user may hardly find the correct icon, as current applications are overloaded with icons each dedicated to a different primitive shape. Furthermore, the workflow of the user is often broken as some interventions are always needed. The use of current system has thus low ergonomics and poor user-experience. This all leads to a lack of productivity.
Another consequence of this complexity is that the specialist designer and the CAD designer are most likely two different persons, since it is difficult for the specialist designer to use the CAD system. This implies a necessity for communication in order to smoothly link the “concept” phase to the “ideation”. Such communication requires time, and it presents other issues. For example, sometimes the 3D model does not correspond to the 2D drawing well enough and many corrections have to be performed.
Within this context, there is still a need for an improved solution for designing a CAD modeled object.